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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29095137">Becoming Me</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodlamb/pseuds/Bloodlamb'>Bloodlamb</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Crybaby Will Graham, Dark Will Graham, Free Will, Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, Is it encephalitis or is it consensual hallucination?, M/M, Man has meltdown after breaking into someone else's property, Someone Help Will Graham, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, Will says fuck once</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 12:41:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,427</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29095137</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bloodlamb/pseuds/Bloodlamb</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Will searches for clues to Hannibal's whereabouts in Lithuania after their separation. He is coming to terms with reality, but cannot seem to understand what his heart wants. He finds himself looking inward and asking Why? What am I doing here?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Hannibal Flash Fic #004</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Becoming Me</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>            The chill of winter had evolved from an unwelcome gnawing to a familiar weight that settled beneath his skin. His breath billows from his lips in hot plumes of frustration. The breeze on the air was cruel and stuttered with a sort of laughter as it rakes through his curls. The painful numbness in his ears and face was merely a promise that this cold would not cease.</p><p>            It had taken more than a few months of his time to find this place. Sneakily combing through file after file, pouring over foreign news reports, any little bit of information that could help him. He didn’t know what else to do with himself. Although surgical precision had left him alive while his sweet girl bled out on the floor beside him, there was still an emptiness inside him, as if something were missing. He had tried to fill the hole with work. But no matter how he tried, he was simply pouring water into an abysmal pit. Walking in the footsteps of other killers left him longing for something more.</p><p>            They did not interest him. They did not frighten him anymore.</p><p>            Jack thought it best for him to take an extended break, to go to therapy, <em>find himself</em> so to speak. It only gave him more time to search. Something had been taken from him, and he wanted it back. Finding Hannibal was the only hope he had of filling the empty hole inside him. He found himself trekking through inches of snow, his coat pulled tightly around him, although it failed to keep out the cold. His eyes settle upon an uphill slope speckled with thin, gnarled trees. The tree line curves around the base of the hill, fanning out into a thick landscape of Lithuanian forest that he had grown all too accustomed to. He had been walking for over an hour, his car left far behind at the locked gates of the estate.</p><p>            At the top of the hill sits a two-story house, with a faded red brick chimney hanging over the rooftop. It was an empty little cottage. A smaller building set still far from the castle itself. The windows had all been broken or removed entirely, there were no longer doors, it was trashed and gutted of anything home-like within. Will steps in through an empty doorway and stomps the snow off his boots, shivering for a moment, rubbing his ears and cheeks to try and restore some warmth.</p><p>            His eyes scan the remains of wood and glass scattered across the floor in piles of rubbish. Someone had broken windows and doors, but why? Was this done to spite the memories its walls held? No, it wasn’t purposefully destroyed, or marked with graffiti. The wood had been taken for a reason; furniture removed for a reason. They were repurposed somewhere else. Maybe in the estate itself. The only thing that stands in the wreckage of the room is a piano, which was rather dusty and dirty from probable years of elements blowing through. It was too quiet for anyone to be here, in this building, but someone had come here. They might still be on the grounds.</p><p>            Many minutes of silent search leave him feeling more helpless than before. There were no papers, no pictures, nothing that indicated someone living had been here for any reason this winter. In forgotten corners of the open room there were toys, long since left to coat themselves in grime, what was this place? A schoolhouse for private tutoring? A parlor for play dates?</p><p>            Will lets out a soft chuckle as he envisions what this room looked like decades ago, with a wash of golden glow to fill him with nostalgia. Lessons that Hannibal probably caught onto faster than his instructor could teach. Curiously watching child friends or siblings entertain themselves on the carpet. Wondering what was so fun about frivolous toys. Impressing them with his mind and his tricks. Or maybe he was an isolated, stone faced kid. Who was to say?</p><p>            There was nothing of note here. The snow had not been broken but for the feet of deer and rabbits and himself. Hannibal was not so sentimental.</p><p>            Amusement and defeat washes over the profiler as he gazes up to the empty wooden ceiling. “He wouldn’t come back here. Memories are satisfaction enough for him. Too many trains of thought to bother with dwelling on a “home” of any kind. Home is more likely a museum, or a chapel, a gala, a kitchen… This place serves no purpose to him beyond walking its floors in his own mind.” He chuckles once more to himself as his eyes begin to sting, murky blue eyes wandering the floor as his chin drops. “What am I doing here?” His throat aches with a painful lump. The chilling breeze titters with laughter again as his shoulders begin to heave with emotion, hot tears dripping down his face, his lips pulling into a frustrated grimace. “What am I doing? I am chasing shadows and memories that don’t exist. Why am I doing this to myself?”</p><p>            His soft sobs fall quiet when glass cracks and wood creaks beneath the weight of footsteps. His bleary vision catches him, standing in a familiar brown overcoat, charcoal gray suit, and red tie. As Will wipes his eyes, maroon ones peer at him curiously from the other side of the room. The former profiler begins to laugh heartily to himself, bitterness mixing with the tears on his lashes. “So- Abigail finally leaves me and you come to take her place? I’m really going mad, aren’t I. I’m finally losing it.”</p><p>            The therapist across from him does not respond immediately. Hannibal tilts his head to the right, taking in Will’s shivering form without a word, his dark eyes scanning down and then up. He then fixes his leather gloves while his lips purse and pucker in thought. “One door closes, and another opens. Your mind palace is expanding, Will.  You are beginning to find that different rooms hold different memories, voices from different parts of your past. Different people. In this moment, you have entered such a room in which I reside. Is that something you feel is correlated directly with your alleged insanity?”</p><p>            The wave of calm that washes over the younger man is almost enough to make him laugh. How pitiful was it, that imagining talking to him again was enough to soothe the ache in his chest? His eyes flicker with thoughts of their many sessions in Hannibal’s office, the way rain sounded on his window, the creak of the second floor when he walked the many shelves of books in his office. Pathetic. “You have always been inextricably linked to my madness, Dr. Lecter.” His voice strangles around the lump of emotion in his throat, and he sniffles gracelessly while rubbing his eyes with his sleeve once more.</p><p>           “You have never shared such a moment of weakness with me before,” The psychiatrist says slowly as Will turns slowly in a circle. “You are grieving. For possibly the first time in your life, you are allowing yourself to be overcome by its whims. Stranded in its roiling waters. Your gift has always been a tool of your work, something you use to appease others, to look inside them. Now, you have no one to face but yourself. And you are facing it. Impressive. I’m proud of you, Will-“</p><p>            “Shut up!” Will snaps suddenly, his expression twisting in agitation as pain floods through his chest. He clutches at himself with a painful sigh, fresh tears stinging his flushed cheeks, and the psychiatrist merely watches him. “You’re not proud of me! You don’t care, you’re just curious. Fascinated by how I’m falling apart without you. This would make you so happy to see, wouldn’t it? I don’t want Jack’s approval anymore. Nor Alana’s.  Not even Bev- what would she think of me now?” His chest heaves with deep breaths as anger and pain course through him. The feeling ignites every nerve with a rawness he can hardly stand. “After everything you did to me, I’m still chasing you! Like a dog who runs to its owner even when he gets kicked in the snout every time.”</p><p>            “And what exactly did I <em>do</em> to you, Will?” His emotional outburst is met by Hannibal’s curious gaze once more. An emotionless composure that was unwavering in the face of a roiling sea of turmoil. It made Will want to scream! So he does.</p><p>            “You lied to me! You exploited my vulnerability and my weakness to drag my friends deeper into your maze. You broke into my home, my sanctuary from the horrors of the world, and framed me for your crimes. You made a <em>mockery</em> of me. You tried to keep me under your thumb as a frightened little mouse, helpless and in shackles. You made me look like a fucking animal! Some feral creature with no sense or reason, as if you were an innocent lamb that did nothing, while your “friend” blamed you for murder.” His voice rattles with the vastness of his rage. “I trusted you not to let me go too far and you watched me burn alive. You loved every second of it. I was never your equal. You never respected me, not once! You killed Abigail because you were pissed that I didn’t play your game exactly the way you wanted me to! I <em>still</em> wanted you to be free, after everything you did to me, and you spat in my face.”</p><p>            The air is heavy with Will’s gasps, plumes of vapor billowing from between his lips as he heaves for air. It had taken a lot out of him to unload the weight of his anger. It felt…good. It felt good to hate Hannibal. It felt good to hate him, and blame him, and not be afraid. Yet, his stomach drops as he realizes that the psychiatrist before him knows this too. The Lithuanian simply smiles at him.</p><p>            “Are you feeling better now?” He questions Will softly, crossing his arms behind his back expectantly as the profiler shrinks back, his body trembling with anxiety. His deep gaze is unwavering as Will’s lips tremble.</p><p>            “It wouldn’t phase you in the slightest to kill me, so why didn’t you? When you had so many chances, you always let me live. Why? Do you just like watching me suffer? I never thought the Ripper was a sadist. Although artistry and passion can be found hand in hand with such an ugly feeling.”</p><p>            “Do you really think I see myself as an innocent lamb, Will? Is that what you are? An innocent little lamb.” There is a strange sense of amusement that lurks within the dark pools of Hannibal’s eyes, and Will no longer hears the wind. The biting chill of the room is Hannibal’s presence. It weighs on him, it freezes him to the spot. “What is communication but a series of manipulations we consent to? We all use each other. If anyone else were to be beholden to the depth of your compulsions, if they were forced to endure its scent and shape, they would never understand.” With every word, Hannibal steps closer, and Will can feel himself shrinking back. He stumbles back against the nearest wall, closing in on himself, trembling as the psychiatrist looms ever closer.</p><p>            Hannibal never raised his voice. He never needed to make a threat. Will was perfectly aware of what he was capable of.</p><p>            The younger man flinches as Hannibal leans down to peer at him. The psychiatrist smiles calmly. “You conveniently forget you tried to have me killed. Who was that fit gentleman again, ah- Matthew Brown? Yes, I believe that was his name. He was quite taken with your aloof demeanor. He was quite excited to have me crucified the way he did. He wanted to impress you. You read the report, I’m sure you did, tell me…what did you think? Since you’re so keen on being honest with me today.”</p><p>            Will is trembling from the proximity, even though he knows that he shouldn’t believe it. But it felt real. He tries to ignore the question, to resist the temptation, but as he breathes in words start to pour out. “It was too gaudy! He was just trying to be like me, like <em>you.</em> As if death can be so simply seen as poetry to impress the monster you admire. It was all pageantry, and he didn’t have a single original thought, he just wanted to replicate something he could be proud of. He had nothing for himself. It was disgusting.”</p><p>            Hannibal smiles almost sweetly as Will expresses anger at the attempt on his life, his maroon eyes glinting. “You would have done it differently, wouldn’t you, Will? You would have done it intimately. With your hands if I recall.” His voice is a chilling whisper that makes Will’s heart pound faster and faster. It is almost unbearable, the rushing heat in his face. He reaches out to grasp onto the psychiatrist, but suddenly he is out of reach.</p><p>            “Do you still want to kill me, Will?”</p><p>            “Yes. No! I-I don’t know? I don’t know anymore. I don’t know what I want!” Will’s voice cracks with uncertainty, his eyes stinging as he looks all around the room, his breath trembling. “I don’t know who I am. I thought I knew what kind of crazy I was but now, now I have no clue whose thoughts I’m thinking. It could be you, or Garret Jacob Hobbs, or Jack, or Georgia…I don’t know who I am. I don’t know what I want. The one thing about you that stayed consistent was that when I was with you, I was always sure of what I wanted... Even when that changed, I felt secure in those changes. But you’re not here.”</p><p>            The weight of this makes Will slowly sink to his knees. His expression crumples with loneliness and he breaks down into painful sobs. “You’re not with me anymore, and I haven’t known what to do since you left!”</p><p>            He knows this isn’t real the moment that Hannibal sits on the floor while he cries. He knows that it is all in his mind like Abigail was. Hannibal sits and watches him without interruption. Will knows the truth, but he still wishes it was reality. As he coughs and wipes his face on his jacket sleeve unceremoniously, the psychiatrist begins to speak. “When we first met, you weren’t impressed by me. My skills and talents didn’t phase you. My horrors didn’t frighten you the way they frighten others. You made my psyche your stomping grounds. As the Ripper, you walked the halls of my mind in a way no one ever has. The only time you were ever scared was when you saw my darkness in your reflection.” He locks eyes with Will, and the younger man can feel the cold seeping through his clothing again, the uncomfortable lumps of wood and drywall underneath his legs.</p><p>            “This empathy disorder you have, you have used it as a tool, to get what you want from others. You can emulate other people’s mindsets, their behaviors, you do it all the time. You even fooled yourself into thinking you were a normal person. You have been an actor all your life, taking morals that are not your own, making choices so that people will need you. Letting them hurt you just for the promise of being accepted. I have always viewed you as my equal, but you never acted like it. I don’t like being lied to, either.”</p><p>            Hannibal inhales deeply and closes his eyes for a moment, before exhaling slowly. “I didn’t kill you because I wanted you to live. I wanted you to stand beside me, I wanted us to share in each other’s triumphs. I wanted to weep with your sorrows, and you with mine. But you were not ready to be yourself. You shunned everything that others wouldn’t approve of, the parts that made you uniquely yourself. That made you like me.” Will’s lips tremble because these words sting. He knows they are true.</p><p>            “I tried to coax you out in a way that you wouldn’t notice. I was concerned that if you realized what I was doing, you would run away. I did not mind that you hated me. Your feelings are so powerful and beautiful in a way I will never experience, they are a gift. But you continued to deny your true nature. I made myself vulnerable to you, too, a leap of faith. If you had said no, at least you would have been standing on equal footing with me. Making a choice for yourself.” Hannibal’s eyes flutter lightly, his gaze falling to the floor. “But, you called and told me to run, choosing to hold your false moral high ground and wallow in indecision. You lied to me, too, Will. About your commitment to our kinship. You refused to choose between the lie you live and who you wanted to become. And here you are, still trying to lie to yourself about who you truly are.”</p><p>            They sit together quietly for a long while, the rustling of tree branches against the outer wall of the building the only sound that interrupted the tranquility. Hannibal stands after a long moment, pacing a distance away as Will processes these many revelations.</p><p>            A wave of relief washes over him as he begins to accept the truth, even though he is still afraid. He rubs his frigid hands together, shivering and thinking, wondering if he was going to have to be the one to break the silence.</p><p>            “…I don’t know why I’m looking for you.” He admits to his friend after the long silence. He takes a moment to swallow the lump in his throat, and then heaves a great sigh. “I don’t know what I feel about you. Hannibal, so much has happened between us that I don’t know how to untangle without you. I’m angry at you. I’m scared of you. I miss you…I miss you so much. I wish I could go back and change it all. I wish I had run away with you. You were my friend, you were more than that. If I can’t have that back, then what’s the point? What’s the point of doing anything anymore? If you wanted to make me feel incomplete without you, then you won! You won. What do I do, now?”</p><p>            Will is in a familiar position, pleading on his knees for an answer, from the only man that had ever made him feel so close to God before. He wasn’t a religious person. He just knew he needed Hannibal. He ached for the sight of him, the weight of his presence, the way his pencil scratched across paper lightly. He longed for the honest pleasantries and amusements of his banter. He had never felt so deep a pain as the pain Hannibal caused him. There was a longing inside him that would never be satisfied, not without him. Hannibal was the only person he could truly be himself with. He knew that now.</p><p>            It seemed that that was the only answer he would receive. As he looks up from his trembling fingers, he finds the room is empty. There is no one to answer him now. He is alone with the memories these broken-down walls might carry. Alone with himself. What should he do? Where should he go? <em>What do I want to do?</em></p><p>            A serene smile spreads across his lips, and he lets out the breath he was holding as contentment washes over him. He was making his first choice. He was doing it all alone. All by himself. It was a lonely feeling, but an empowering one. “I want to become me.”</p><p>            He had resolved that if he found nothing in Lithuania, that he would travel to France, where familiar and mysterious murders were occurring. He does not know that a second trail of footprints follow him as he leaves the Lecter estate. Maybe he simply does not care. He was going to find him. And when they saw each other again, he was either going to kiss that man, or kill him. There’d be a strange satisfaction in it, if he did have to strangle the life out of Hannibal Lecter. No longer following someone else’s shadow but being his own darkness.</p><p>            This was his becoming.</p><p>             </p>
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